Visited friends last weekend in Chicago, and some of ’em (who were living in the neighborhood) brought us to this cozy lil cafe. The name on the website’s Austrian Bakery, but the name outside the place was “Cafe Vienna” – same difference :)

Anyhoo, we were there for brunch, and our friend (who raves abt this place to high heavens) recommended the breakfast croissant sandwich. I’d initially wanted to order an omelette, but he’s like, HEY ORDER THE CROISSANT SANDWICH IT HAS AN OMELETTE IN IT! Boom!

So. The Croissant Sandwich includes coffee and the croissant below with omelette + ingredients of your choice (4! or more, and you pay a lil extra). I had mine with sausage, onions, mushrooms, mixed pepper + swiss cheese! ‘Twas a heavenly combi. Although the boys didn’t agree with my choices of course. Another friend got the same one, but with all meat (bacon + ham + sausage + cheese). -_- This was so good nonetheless! Loved the croissant – very crispy; although it became kinda soggy towards the end coz of the omelette. I’d have preferred if the omelette was a little tastier though – had to eat it with some ketchup to make it taste a little better. It was a HUGE portion though; couldn’t even stomach half of it.

We also got the schnitzel! This was the Cordon Bleu weiner schnitzel – panfried veal with berry sauce (so interesting! reminded me of the IKEA meatballs with jam? yum) and roasted parsley potatoes. Also comes with small soup (which was delish!) So the difference b/w the Cordon bleu schnitzel and the normal weiner schnitzel is that (not pictured below sorry!) there’s ham and cheese INSIDE THIS SCHNITZEL! As if there wasn’t enough meat in this! Very tasty, loved the breaded coating, and the potatoes were a delight! :) A must try! Kinda brought me back to my eurobackpacking days in germany where we stuffed our faces with HUGEASS schnitzels (bigger than my face no kidding) all day long.

Other friends had the BLT sandwich (this was REALLY , REALLY HUGE!) and i didn’t manage to take pictures of that, but according to him, it was phenomenal. I guess you can’t go wrong with bacon and boys, huh? :)

Finally, our friend highly recommended the apple strudel. I was SO psyched to try it i left space for dessert. But sadly, it was really a huge disappointment :( I mean, the pastry was crispy and perfectly flaky, but the apples were just a little too sour for my liking. Everyone else liked it though – so it might just be me! Apparently they have really good pastries too. Should’ve tried smth else. They were very very generous with the amt of apples in this strudel though. Prolly had 2 apples in this strudel alone.

Up close & personal.Very moist apple filling.

All in all, a very cozy and lovely place. Def a must-try! Also, try to beat the crowd coz the place is very tiny and you might have to wait a long time to get a seat during peak period.